Ommatidia Finished

I shared earlier this week the process that went into making my giant bee head quilt and today I'm back to share the final piece.

The outside is covered wtih foss shape and it was really great to scuplt with.  It was fun to stretch and heat and staple and pad until I got it to a shape I liked.  It's hard to tell but the eye sockets have some depth along the outer edges and the whole thing is taut and stiff.  I love the eyebrows that sort of got unexpectedly incorporated as I was dealing with excess fossshape.

Ommatidia, c. Shannon Conley, 2025, 32x32x14

I really love the way it turned out, in particular the rainbow of colors in the eyes (the ommatidia) against the white of the main face.

I love the color movement in the test tubes across the surface of each eye.

Here you can see the ridges around the eye socket and the eyebrow a bit better.

One challenge is that the proboscis sticks down below the internal structure which means it can't sit flat upright on a table.  It has to either sit upside down (on top of its head) or flat on its back.  It turns out to be 26 pounds which is quite heavy, but I got a french cleat and it hangs fine from that. 

For a while after I hung it up with the french cleat I wasn't 100% sure whether it would stay on the wall so I moved a big soft dog bed under it.  At first I kept the dogs off (lest a large bee sculpture fall on them) but after a while it seemed stable so Blue joined the picture. 

The piece is currently on display (along with several others of mine) in a mixed media exhibition at the Capitol Rotunda Gallery at the New Mexico State Capitol.  The lighting techs for the show did the most amazing job I've ever seen- somehow they managed to light the bee head so that the shadows it casts look like wings and body.  I could never have expected something so awesome.  If you happen to be in the Santa Fe area (through December 21, 2026), stop by the capitol and see the show. 

We've all been joking that the bee is silently judging everyone who walks by.